OK now you know the basics of colour correction filters let’s talk a little about effects filters. These differ from colour correction filters in that they are designed to create a specific mood when lighting a scene.

Now before we begin I just want to get something off my chest: a lot can be, and is done, in the grading stages of production to help bring out a visual style of a film/documentary BUT – it’s important to remember that lighting with a certain style in mind, i.e. lighting with purpose, will give you much greater results and much more to work with when you get into your grade.

For example: Want to enhance that backlight to make it bluer in the grade? If you’ve lit the scene with balanced “white light” you might find it hard to isolate the specific source you’re looking for. By having distinct colours in your raw footage it will allow you to select and enhance/desaturate elements quickly and easily in your grade. You can achieve this using gels or mixed colour temperatures. Make sense? Good. So let’s get to it.

OK, let’s do a quick review on colour correction so far; in my first blog in this series we’ve talked about the importance of colour temperature, how it’s measured and how that relates in terms of the colour or hue of light. Warm looking light has a low colour temperature and cold looking light has a higher colour temperature. We’ve said that the colour temperature of natural daylight is 5,600K but changes throughout the day and we’ve now talked about how to convert (or correct) tungsten light into daylight using specific blue colour temperature gels know as CTB gels. Now I want to move on and discuss HMI’s (these produce daylight) and how we can convert them into Tungsten light or give the HMI light a warmer look.

Hello everybody. First of all, as I’m sure you’re aware, I’ve not posted a blog in quite a while. I must apologise but I’ve been incredibly busy over the past few weeks (filming left, right and centre), but I’ve had a bit of time recently so thought I’d continue with the series! Hope you guys enjoy it, be sure to leave a comment or get in touch on facebook/twitter!

Ok so this is the second blog all about colour correction, if you haven’t read the first one, here it is . If you have read the first one I hope you now have a very basic understanding of Colour Temperature. So, where do we go from here? Well there are two forms of colour correction, colour correction in camera (known as White Balance) and colour correction in lighting.

Colour correction in camera is something we’ll discuss another time, for now let’s concentrate on Colour Correction in lighting.

Daylight Colour Correction

First things first. Basically there are 3 types of lights that we use in the film and TV industry: LED, Tungsten and HMI Lighting.

LED lighting will be covered in a separate blog but for now I want you to explain the difference between Tungsten and HMI Lighting, before I go on to look at how we convert Tungsten light into daylight…

So I thought I’d do a series of blogs all about filters; what they do, how you use them and why they’re so damned handy…

OK, I know you may think that this isn’t perhaps the most exciting subject to read about, but it’s vital for all you budding Directors of Photography and Cinematographers out there, to understand that your ultimate aim is to masteryour craft, and that means having a deep understanding of ALL aspects of camerawork and lighting.

Mastery will get you to the top of your profession; being part of what I call the ‘Mediocre Majority’ will not, and knowing your craft will get you ultimate respect from your colleagues. If you don’t know this basic stuff, then when you work with experienced Lighting Gaffers and ‘Sparks’ you’ll gain zero respect from them, they’ll see you as unprofessional and treat you with contempt… quite right too!

I know I keep banging on about this but remember… a big part of mastering this craft means having a real in-depth understanding of anything and everything to do with camerawork.

So now I’ve had my industry rant let’s get down to work…

I’m going to divide this into a mini series of into 6 easy to understand parts:

Part 1 : What is Colour Temperature?

Part 2: Why Colour Correction filters are used to change colour temperature and how to use them.

Part 3: The most commonly used Filters.

Part 4: Effects filters and how to use them.

Part 5: How and why you use diffusion to soften a light source.

Part 6 : Bringing it all together a practical workshop on colour correction and filming using mixed lighting

So I’m trying something a bit different here… I’m thinking “bite-sized blogs” – I thought shorter, quicker to read blogs (interspersed amongst more substantial ones) might be enjoyable for people who want a ‘quick fix’. Let me know if you like the idea, just a thought!

So this one is short and sweet. We’ve been busy over here at Free Spirit – we’re getting a lot of interest in our courses so I’ve been a bit snowed under of late! I appreciate that it’s been a week or so since my last post so I thought I’d bash this one out to give you something to chew on while I’m working on more substantial posts.

Just a quick, cheeky note, I’ve added a donation button to the side of the blog. If you feel like these posts are helpful in any way, financial support would really be greatly appreciated and will help keep this blog going!

Ok anyway, onwards! Continuing my series on Lighting for Film & TV here are a few tips for making sure you’re giving your subject the best chance of looking great on camera (sometimes they need all the help they can get!!). If you havent already checked out part 1 and part 2 (all about the basics and 3 point lighting respectively, I’d recommend checking them out). These are more ‘tidbits’ if you will, things I’ve picked up over the years. It’s nothing too substantial, but …

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My name's Chris Weaver and I know how hard it can be to break into the film/tv industry so I'm going to try and share with you information, tips, tricks & insider knowledge (as well as some bloody funny stories) from my 30 years experience as a Film & TV cameraman. Just drop by when you’ve got nothing better to do and have fun!

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